Page 48 - July18LivingSCCLmagazine

Arthur Ashe
American Tennis Hero
By Rita C. Arundell
Arthur Robert Ashe has many firsts connected to his name. He is the first and only African American male to win the US Open, in 1968, and Wimbledon where he beat Jimmy Connors for the title in 1975. He was the first African American male named #1 tennis player in the world, and he is the first African American to be recruited by the all-male US Davis Cup team. He is the first African American male to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
So where did Arthur Ashe come from? He was born
in July of 1943, in Richmond, Virginia. When he was seven, he began playing tennis at a court near his home. He caught the eye of a tennis coach who was active in the black tennis community, and was coached by him and others, finally going to the University of California on a tennis scholarship. He won the intercollegiate singles and doubles titles in 1965, at the age of 22.
He continued winning various tennis championships, including the US Open in 1968, the French Open,
the Australian Open, and other events too numerous
to list here. He helped the US team win the Davis
Cup Challenge in 1968, 1969, and 1970. In 1975
at the age of 32, he won Wimbledon and the World Championship Singles, and was then ranked first in world tennis.
He married in 1976 and remained married the rest of his life. Suffering a heart attack in 1979, at the age of
36, he retired from tennis competition, though he remained involved in the game, becoming captain of the US Davis Cup team from 1981 to 1985.
He contracted HIV from
a blood transfusion he
received during a heart
operation in 1983. Ashe
had been very active in
civic matters all of his life
and continued to fight
discrimination after his retirement. He had created inner city tennis programs, and raised awareness about AIDS through his foundation, the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS. He spoke out against apartheid in South Africa and protested the US treatment of Haitian refugees, for which he was arrested.
He was a very inspirational person, saying at one time: “True heroism is....not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.”
Ashe died in 1993, at the age of 49, from pneumonia related to AIDS. He won many awards, and was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by then-President Bill Clinton in 1993. He is also included on a list of the 100 greatest African Americans. There are a number of stadiums named for Ashe, including the Arthur Ashe Athletic Stadium in Richmond, Virgina, and the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New York. L
Home of the US Open Tennis Championship, the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New
48 LIVING @ SCCL, July 2018